


Just This Once

by Rubynye



Category: Lord of the Rings - Tolkien
Genre: Multi, Nonmonogamy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-14
Updated: 2010-01-14
Packaged: 2017-10-06 06:31:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,371
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/50707
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rubynye/pseuds/Rubynye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pervinca Took is resourceful.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Just This Once

**Author's Note:**

> Over on [](http://community.livejournal.com/middleearthnews/profile)[**middleearthnews**](http://community.livejournal.com/middleearthnews/), they announced the concept of "[Back to Middle-Earth Month](http://community.livejournal.com/middleearthnews/91342.html)"&gt;. I thought inaugurating such a month was as good a time as ever to post this little story I wrote about hobbit life, and about Pervinca.

Title: Just This Once  
Fandom: LOTR hobbitfic  
Rating: R  
Pairings: Pervinca/OMCs, Pervinca/OFC, Pervinca/Angelica  
Summary: Pervinca Took is resourceful.  
Warnings/Categories: het, femslash, a little dark  
Disclaimer: Hobbits aren't mine. I just like visiting the Shire every so often.  


 

It wasn't that Vinca would have had Chel keep to her alone. That was his idea. It wasn't that she pressed him to promise aught; that was all his doing.

But the promises made her heart soften like the wax in a lit candle, or perhaps it was the shine of his blue eyes in the dark of her room at midnight. Mayhap it was how he danced her round the ballrooms, till she couldn't feel the floor beneath her feet, or the way he asked her thoughts and truly listened, on what it might be like in Bree or further afield in the lands of Men where few hobbits ever went. Or possibly it was just how his blue eyes looked in the day, how he seemed to see her and how she saw herself reflected in them. Pervinca looked for that maid of calm and wit in her mother's mirror, and smiled when she saw her.

Whatever it was, just this once Pervinca set her heart on a lad, and counted her hours by when she might see him, and kept to him alone. Within a season Pervinca saw in Chelderic what he'd taught her heart to see, and he might have kept it going awhile, perhaps till they handfasted, perhaps past their wedding. But one day on an errand to the kitchens, passing by a closet door, she heard his voice, breathless as she'd last heard him three nights before in her bed. She stopped, and stepped back, and leaned her ear to the door, though her heart was freezing within her.

"Posey, Posey, sweet-mouthed Posey." The yellow-haired kitchen lass, Pervinca recalled, listening soundless as her heart battered at the ice around it. "Ah, Posey, 'twon't be long, I promise you, I promise." A muffled giggle, wet kisses sounding. "When I'm set here I'll raise you from the kitchens, I promise."

Chel had promised 'Vinca, just the same way, that one day they'd see Bree together. There was a wail in her throat, but she shut her lips tight on it. "And what place'll I have then, Chel sir?" asked the lass Posey, high soft voice, sulky-teasing tone.

His answering laugh, low and warm and satisfied-sounding. Pervinca remembered that laugh breathed against her brow. "My children will need a nurse, won't they? Nurses, likely, and a likely lass to oversee the lot? Doubtless my Miss Took won't pay them any mind, with her head full of far-off fancies. A typical Took."

Vinca threw herself away from the door before she choked. Chel's voice still continued behind the door, soft and overlain with giggles, but she set one foot down, then the next, till she was all the way down the hall, moving though her heart was falling to sharp little pieces within her.

In her room Pervinca tore up two cushions and an undershift, and was snappish with little Larkspur that her hair be perfect for dinner. She smiled and ate little, kissed Chel with numb lips and told him she was weary that night, and slept in scattered feathers and dreamt of nothing.

The next night Pervinca began going to the kitchens every day, and made friends with the lass Posey, flattering her on how fresh she looked when she worked so hard and how fine her skin was when her arms were so strong. Soon enough Posey's smile went wide and pleased and her eyes shifted guiltily when she thought Vinca glanced away. After five days of this, when they sat giggling over brandied apples in the chimney corner, 'Vinca pulled a long face and confided that she thought her beau Chel had wandering eyes, that they might be lighting on her mother's maid.

Within two weeks her Da sent Chelderic packing home to his aunt and her overflowing little smial, after boxing his ears soundly for taking advantage of maids. The roaring could be heard from the Thain's office clear past Pervinca's room, but when Chel passed by 'Vinca's room to bid her farewell he couldn't find her..

The next night Pervinca went to the kitchens late when Posey was the last one there, and wept a few tears on her shoulder. The lass proved indeed to have a sweet mouth, and a sweet bosom, and strong fingers. When Posey was well asleep Pervinca put three of the best spoons in her inner apron pocket and a bundle of seven more in a kitchen towel beneath the little bed.

Then it was the week ending in Nell's birthday and a ball, and Vinca's Mam and Da were all distracted because one of their kitchen staff was gone on no notice, turned out of her position for thieving. "And to think," Pervinca's Mam was saying to her Da when she went to present herself for their approval, "that the lass tried that old 'I don't know how these came to me' trick?" Her father nodded, listening, barely paying heed to Pervinca as he kissed her brow. "I think... was she the same bit who complained on Chelderic Brace-Boffin?"

Vinca's feet stuck fast to the floor. Just for a moment, but long enough for her Mam to ask, "Pervinca lass, you knew the lad, didn't you? There's so many tweens in and out of the Smials, I can hardly keep them sorted."

"I danced with him a time or two, but I didn't know him well." Pervinca smiled, a simple curve of lips.

Her father growled a little. "Well and good, with him the sort to go for making warming-pans of the servants. Do any of the farms around have sturdy daughters wanting positions?" As her parents talked together, Vinca set one ribboned foot before the other. It was her sister's birthday, and there was a ball to be danced.

Vinca danced. She danced with half the lads without a steady lass, nearly every lad whose lass would be cross for it, and several of the cheerfullest lasses. Her kissing-friends, whom she'd laid aside for Chel, all cried "'Vinca!" and she danced with them laughing at her own singlemindedness now past and swearing she'd never do aught so daft again, and they cheered and kissed her for returning to them. When Mosco, a little far into his ales, told her that he'd wanted to tup her since "afore I had hairs round my prick" she pulled him into a closet and made sure he had some now; after, she drank two ciders, then took a laughing-tipsy Angelica back to her guest room, helped her from her bodice and petticoats, and had her against the wall, pushing the soft hobbit-lass against the hard wood before tipping her into her bed.

When Angelica's long-lashed eyes fluttered closed Pervinca pulled on her dress again, rumpled from its pleats, and let her hair fall from its ribbons to drift round her shoulders. With most of Great Smials at the ball or in the parlors beside, she took a long wandering quiet way back to her room, till an unknown freckled-faced lad crossed her path. He was the Bunces' new young driver, thoroughly lost and bewildered in Great Smials' long tunnels, and she told him her name was Posey and the ways he needed to go. He asked her to walk him there, and by the cabinets near the doors to the stables he blushed till his freckles vanished into the ruddiness and kissed her hand.

Pervinca kissed his mouth, and looked up at him sidelong through her lashes; he kissed her fervently and lifted her up against a cabinet door and tupped her breathlessly, and blushed crimson after. She told him the wildness of the Tooks was catching, and giggled, and kissed his nose and bade him goodnight.

The hallway of her family's rooms was echoing-quiet when she reached it, everyone else still dancing or gaming or chasing and catching. Pervinca took herself to her bed, curling up in the silence, and, just this once, she wept herself to sleep.


End file.
